So last week I spent a lot of time talking about a new change and commitment to exercise, so how did you do? Were you able to make a change last week for the better? Did you increase your activity level? Hopefully you did, but if not, don’t beat yourself up over it. This is a new week. Last week I am proud to say I increased my activity level and made my goals. It was hard work but I feel so great that I stayed committed to my exercise goals.

As a reminder if you’re just seeing the site for the first time, changethisweek.org is all about personal growth and creating change for yourself and others that you affect. Each week I am challenging you to make a commitment for change. What can you change in your life for the better? How can you be a catalyst for change for others? The change should be something attainable, something you can succeed at. Maybe choose something that you have been putting off or something that you really notice as an area needing change in your life. Make a commitment to this change for the week and stay with it. Share your commitment and change with someone so that they can help encourage you along the way. Then celebrate your success no matter how small after the week is complete and then make a new commitment.

This week I am committing to make my ChangeThisWeek about gratitude. I am a happy man and a grateful man already. However, therein lies the challenge. How do I make a change revolving around gratitude? Spending this last weekend with family and friends and a few Mothers Day events, I was really struck with the blessings of my life. There was so much joy, love and happiness being created and spread that I was really inspired and basking in it all.

Even though this blog is posting today, I started my Gratitude week a little early by sending out Mothers Day cards and messages to about 50 mothers I know and love. I really wanted the mothers in my life to know how much I love and value them. The way I showed gratitude for Mothers Day is just an example as it occurred this week, but how can we show gratitude without there being a special occasion or event? I believe it is really simple. When you know it, show it. When you feel it, say it. That is my commitment this week. I am going to tell and show a different person each day this week how I am grateful for them being in my life. I don’t know exactly what this is going to look like or sound like yet but I am making this commitment. And when I know it I will show it, when I feel it, I will say it.

If you want to join me in this gratitude commitment, come on along, let’s do this! Or perhaps you have something else you want to work on this week. Either way, participate in making a Change this Week and let me know how you’re doing. I want to encourage and support you in your personal work. Good luck on your commitment this week and check in all week on new posts to help you along.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @changethisweek for daily inspirations and motivations.

Jay Ry diving in the Caymans

Jay Ry is the founder of changethisweek.org and a regular person like you that enjoys motivation and inspiration every week.

It’s Friday! Change This Week continues with our commitments and segments on exercise. Today we have another guest blogger who is a fantastic entrepreneur, personal trainer and nutritionist. I know because he has personally kicked my butt to do my best. Let me introduce you to Harut Tovmasyan.

As technology advances, we are seeing an increase in the conveniences seen in today’s society. While these results are seen as positive, there are some negatives; mainly – laziness. We drive more often than we do walk or run. Televisions are remote control operated. When our remote control dies, smart phones and tablets have an app that is compatible to your TV/DVD/Blu-Ray so you don’t miss a second of what you’re watching. Escalators, elevators, and segways allow you to not have to worry about lifting a foot to go from Point A to Point B. All these and a number of other inventions are created in order to make things simpler for everyday life and as much as I love how easy life has become, I can’t help but think how damaging it can actually be to the health of our society.

For one, we generate less movement, a key element to neural health (connecting your brain and body). Think of it like this, “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” The human body is designed to move, labor, and perform, but we limit ourselves because something is too difficult or inconvenient. You know the excuses, “I’m not in the mood to do this,” “I don’t want to go there,” “The gym is too far away,” or whatever your reasoning. Start simple and don’t spend your time thinking you’ve got to do the most intense workout EVER. Go for walks which could lead to jogging, then running, or swimming. However you want to progress from the first step is up to you. There isn’t a cookie cutter answer for everything, everyone is different and has different likes and goals. Try and remember that when you see people moving or working out, there is a reason to why they are doing it (at least there should be). Don’t pay attention to how fast someone lost weight, how “fit” that guy or girl at the gym looks, or follow these crazy 20-30 day diets or intense work out programs. First of all, the incidences of injury can be very high because the program may not be specific to each individual (health history, levels of fitness, previous injuries). Secondly, a majority of the diets out there that help people lose weight are mainly carb depletion and water weight loss and while the results may be great, they are not long lasting. The rebound effect from these programs can be greater than you think; putting the weight back on once you stop the program and back into your routine. So do something that will make your program enjoyable.

Make it a lifestyle change and start easy. Create your goal for the week or month and make it realistic, but make sure that the goal is SMART. What does that mean? Your goals should be specific to you, measurable on the scale, measuring tape, or clothes, something that is attainable. An example of this is dropping down a pant size or just feeling healthy and fit again. Make sure you are staying realistic, don’t expect to lose 50lbs in 1 month (1-2lbs of fat per week is healthy weight loss), and timely. Give yourself a timeframe to achieve these goals. At times it may seem difficult, but once you achieve it you will generate motivation for more challenging goals. As for nutrition, keep it simple: fruits, veggies, protein, and healthy fats. The less processed food, the faster the results (hint: if you can’t pronounce the name on the ingredients list, it’s probably processed). So the main idea for this week’s Change of the Week is this:keep it simple, get out and move.

Jason Wilburn is a great father, friend, fitness and nutrition enthusiast who is guest blogging about exercise for Change This Week. He is also passionate about the health benefits of alkaline water which you can find out more about at the end of this post. Take it away JW.

I’ve been exercising since I could walk. My parents would say I skipped the walking and just started running around. But, I was not the skinny string bean you might think because of it. I struggled hard with excess fat, not because I didn’t exercise daily, but because I did so while having zero discipline around what I consumed. A milk shake is not the best way to reward an hour of hard core soccer, followed by two grilled cheese sandwiches. Sure, when we’re 8 years old, we can process that and not cause too much damage. But when I was about to become a father at 28 years old, the exercise was doing little to help my 245 pound 6 foot body mass reduce itself. So, I finally got fed up with being fat (and I called myself that all day long) and did something about the eating. I did my own diet, there’s a million out there, but the common denominator was to eat less. That’s it, eat less. And exercise.

Two years later, I was eating half the amount of food I was eating prior, for what I called “a meal”. I had naturally began to really limit the amount of excess sugar I was inhaling via desserts and such. It was a natural extension of feeling the power of my food control and regular exercise. I dropped the weight fast, and guess what? I was exercising less than ever. The point of this intro is to clear the slate on the confusing messages we’re bombarded with every minute of the day about how to get there: to the ideal body, to the size we want, etc. Exercise, health, weight loss, it’s all a symphony. That’s exciting (not like a symphony you had to sit through as a child), but exciting because you get to conduct it however works for you. I found that a customized food and exercise plan for me, was one that I designed, no one else. I know me best, so who else could design a better plan?

The symphony of improving health you’re going to create for yourself must have all components: Healthy thinking about yourself, healthy amounts of food/liquids, and healthy amounts of exercise. I know this works. In two years, I lost 85 lbs., have kept it off for over 13 years, and now have a body that I had always wanted, but seriously did not believe I was built to have. The common ingredient in all the components of the symphony you’re conducting is that they must be consistent. By nature, we humans like to abandon our commitments, it takes real effort to stick with things. So, give yourself a break first. If you don’t want to run the 4 miles you promised yourself, run 2. At least you ran, that’s the important thing. You can up the distance later. If you just don’t have the energy for 100 push ups, do 20. Then do 10 more, then 5 more, then… you get the idea. This is all a practice. So practice. Practice just doing it, whatever amount you do. I developed this habit as a young child and it’s never left me all my life, no matter how heavy I had become. Once you get the practice in your blood and make it happen every week, little by little, big things happen.

The real insight in the practicing was this: I could NOT fail if I’m practicing. The number one reason I do NOT follow through some days with doing the exercise I set out to do, is because I give into the idea of failure. Once you accept your excuses, you feel failure, in your belly, and it hurts. So feel that failure, then allow yourself to feel how UN-failing you really are. Relax, there is actually nothing to fail at. This is all for you, by you, with you. You are inherently unfailing. If you can accept that you can NOT fail, even if you do nothing when you committed to walking, running, swimming or riding your bike. If it’s your practice, and you can not fail at it, then you will relax a little and you just might find a few minutes to take a short walk. The next day, a longer one. And so on. It’s the consistency that you most deserve to give yourself. It’s the lack of consistency that sends people “off the rails” when they attempt to make not only a change this week, but a lifetime change all in a moment. You can’t do it all, right now, so do what you know you can do and feel how unfailing in that you are. Pretty soon, you’ll be exercising at a high level you never thought you were capable of, with ease.

Example: the symphony will change

–1998: when I was 245 pounds, I was lifting weights 3 days a week and walking about 10 miles a week, and not fast at all. I also did push ups and have always done various abdominal exercises every week.
–3 years later, my exercise plan had me doing 300 push ups broken up into 5 sets. 300 abdominal reps (various forms), then 3 rounds of some high rep, low weight dumbbell work. I did this 3 days a week. Sometimes 1 day a week, sometimes 4 days a week. But I did it every week, no matter what.
–13 years later, I do 130 pull ups, 200 push ups, 100 mountain climbers on each side (2 times/week), 6-8 hours of vinyasa yoga, and run between 10 and 30 miles.

Your body itself is a symphony, conducted mostly by water. If you’re going to exercise, eat well, and think well, don’t drink battery acid to refuel yourself. Alkaline, highly filtered water is the first and best liquid you should be drinking every day. The bonus is, you don’t have to buy any more cases of plastic bottled acid water sold at most stores. You can make unlimited quantities of highly filtered, Alkaline water in your own home, find out more about that “here”… Kangen Water website – www.i4realwater.com

The common denominator isn’t what I was doing, it’s THAT I was doing it. So get out there and just do what you can for now, it will grow, change, morph into something totally different down the road, but so will your body in the process. Enjoy it, it’s your plan, your body, your exercise and it’s all for you.

Biking on the weekend at Cheseboro CanyonThe idea behind Change This Week is simple. What change can you make this week to improve your life and the lives of others? The change you set out on should be attainable. Choose something that is not so small to be insignificant but also not too big so that you won’t succeed. I’m not expecting you to cure cancer this week but definitely find something that you are interested in improving.

So every week I will talk about a new topic that you can opt to make a change about and share with the world. My desire is to encourage you and give you some insight from a regular guy perhaps on the same journey as you, so I will also tell you about my own progress and setbacks in the process. Some weeks you may already have something else on your mind that you want to personally improve on, but if not let’s make a change this week about exercise.

Exercise often brings groans and dread in anticipation of doing an activity and sweating. Or worse yet exercise can bring feelings of guilt or regret that stem from past weight gain or failures that we haven’t let go of yet. I have been notorious for this over the years. With many years of being overweight, I would not make time to exercise and then beat myself up over it. When I started having some serious health issues including a bleeding ulcer, I had a decision to make. Did I want to continue down this path of unhealthy choices and unhappiness or did I want to thrive and see my young daughters grow up and graduate?

For me, the decision was simple. The implementation of it was definitely challenging. There are the easy excuses. I work a lot, raise my daughters, coach their teams, and enjoy an active social life. THAT’S why I was out of shape. Haha. We all have the reasons to not be active, so let’s not waste our time and energy there. Get that part out of your system. Let’s focus on what we can change, make it tangible and start now.

Exercise these days is fun for me. It wasn’t at all this way for many years so I had to find a way to enjoy the work I was doing to improve myself. Finding friends with similar interests, working out with people that would keep me accountable, and creating exercise I could do at home while being full time Dad were all places to start. I didn’t have much spare time so I had to overlap time I was already using. When I’m home with my children, I could exercise while they are sleeping. When I want to hang out with friends or my girlfriend, let’s do something active together and socialize.
So now that exercise is an area that I am creating more success in, I want to push it further.

This is the change this week that I am going to make a commitment about. I just started mountain biking, so I am committing to 3 hours of mountain biking this week. I also do weight training 1 hour a week so this week I’m going to double it to 2 hours. One other set of exercises that I am doing daily is push-ups and squats. This week I am going t commit to increasing the amount to 110 push-ups and 110 squats each day.

That’s it, that’s my commitment I am going to be accountable for and I am going to make this change this week:

This is going to be a challenge for me, but I know I can attain it with discipline. And this is a tangible goal for you to see and perhaps get an idea about to create your own commitment with. Make a commitment with me to change this week. The best outcome is you succeed and feel great about putting a win on the board for yourself. The worst outcome is you fail but learn that you need more encouragement or some help with your time management.

Participate with us. I want to hear your stories, success or failure. We also will be expanding to have guest bloggers so if you have some great contributions to make on motivating people about any of these topics, hit me up. I want to hear from you! Thanks for reading and have a great week!

I had an amazing trip recently that inspired me. I found inspiration when I was able to shut out the work and the electronic world that is constantly vying for my attention. One big part to accomplish this was that I was on a ship and I wasn’t easily reachable. That was such a great blessing that I wasn’t aware I needed.

Once I was out on the open seas, enjoying the planet in its purest and I was able to breathe, to read, to meditate, to exercise, to fully sleep, a funny thing happened. I got inspired in a big way. I had so many ideas racing through my head. Thoughts of business, love, my children, and self improvement. Once the noise had subsided, there was clarity and I was in my great space to create. This created great happiness within me and this website is one of the inspirations that I came up with in this space.

What do you want to change in your life this week? Here’s a suggestion to challenge yourself this week. Make room inside yourself to Get Inspired! What is it that you REALLY want to be doing? What’s that change you have been delaying? What’s that conversation you have been avoiding with yourself or someone else?

Make time for yourself to find the quiet. Silence the noise in your life so you can find that inspiration that is waiting to surface. Whatever your heart desires will come to you when you make space for it.

So that is the change for you to challenge yourself with this week. Please share with me how you do!